The 2013 International CES hasn’t officially opened yet, but one of the hottest trends so far is Android based gaming consoles. NVidia
announced their Project Shield console last night, and another company, Sunflex,
just hours ago confirmed that their “snakebyte eins” device unveiled at Gamescon 2012 will in fact be an multifaceted Android device called the “
unu” that is part game console. These two companies along with the
Ouya, which made headlines with
their kickstarter campaign earlier this year are leading the charge.
Personally, I am wondering if the fractured nature of the Android operating system will doom these consoles to fail before they even get started. All we would have to do is take a look at what happened to the android tablet market over the last three years, and it may shake out that the small guys will fail and only a handful of strong companies will thrive. It will be interesting to see how this plays out for the remainder of CES and in the near future.
